Creating Worlds
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: After serving in the military, Lafiel and Jinto act on Lafiel's dream of building liveable planets in her Duchy. Now living in a space colony, they speak about their final duty to raise Abh children, which might be clones or otherwise. But what are Jinto's feelings about what he wants done with his genes? Does he want a clone of himself? Or will he ask Lafiel to lend her genes?
1. Chapter 1

**A story long overdue-due. ObeliskX wished for a story about Crest of the Stars. I will still be slow to post because of so many things going on at my end right now, but here is a beginning.**

Even now, Lafiel's household was rife with cats. No one knew precisely how many there were. The servants only knew to leave offerings of bowls of milk twice a day and those cats whom were less feral came to lap at the bowls, their tongues trembling the water's surface. They ghosted out from between bushes like shadows and vanished again with all the speed of a bird. Yet some curled and napped in the sun, enjoying the presence of their humanoid companions. One even sat on the lap of a man dressed in a white barron's outfit, enjoying the sensation of his hand stroking the soft fur at the nape of its neck. The cat stretched and purred before rejoining its companions at a saucer of milk.

"Why does a space-habitat station even need cats?" a visitor casually said, her long, slender Abh hands tucked behind herself, folded just above her abundant blue hair. She was younger than Jinto Lin. Much younger. For he, being human and not born an Abh, was showing the effects of the passage of time. A tiny bit of gray hair showed, mixed like pepper into his bangs.

"Lafiel has always had cats in her household," was Jinto's soft-spoken answer. "I don't know why. It has something to do with her father's habits,I guess. She tells me he is a cat person."

"I.. understand. I don't mean to anger you, Barron," came the youngster's reply. The Abh were well-versed from birth in their particular court manner. They prided themselves in their system of court titles but such devotion was not a mere gesture of pride. Titles were fundamentally a military appointment. And Jinto had earned his.

"Not all," Jinto spoke with an off-handed grin cracking the corner of his face. He smiled more often than many of his companions despite having left his military service. His honorary discharge from the military had come because the Empress of the Abh Empire had deemed his injuries and personal suffering great enough to warrant it.

"But... your Grace,' the woman said looking out onto the long, thread of a flower garden before them. "Why have a rose garden aboard a space vessel? Isn't all the added weight of the soil a waste of resource?"

"It is... one necessary indulgance," Jinto spoke out loud. "The Countess has a personal goal of planting many roses on the planet she builds. She is working on coming up with new cultivars to mark the occassion of its settlement."

"I see. Your Grace," the young Abh said before falling to silence. She bowed and exited.. and Jinto waited. Waited for the doors to his suite to open again for the one he waited for. The Duchess who ruled this space colony where he had come to live, far from his native home Martine, of the Hyde Star System. And soon she came. Lafiel.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2 of...however long it takes.**

"Lafiel," Jinto said out loud to the air, feeling breathless. The sight of the Abh girl always entranced him so that he felt speechless. In ancient times of man's confinement to Earth- one single, simple planet in the Universe- there had been times when countries had declared trade embargoes so strict that residents of one's country only wished for glimpses of outside worlds. There had been at least one man or two, so desperate in his curiosity for the unseen land from whence strangers had come, that they had thrown themselves into the sea to follow after strangers and forfeit all they knew and loved for that which they did not. So it was with Jinto, albeit with far more reluctance.

"Lafiel," Jinto spoke again the the Abh woman neared him. Radiant as sunlight, and slender of limb and waist as though she might have been modeled after a lake's heron, she shifted nearer to him, her hair blue like the water and just as shimmering. Her gown, too, seemed it would be soft under his thumb, with its folds of satin. White like the scent-strewing roses of her garden. Jinto closed his eyes with contentment then opened them, much like the over-fed, calico cat which had departed his lap.

"So you've come for me. I've hoped as much."

"I always do," Lafiel pouted almost imperceptibly as she lowered her long yet well-rounded face with eyes that seemed they would pierce for miles. Her voice was gentle chime, with almost a lisp. But not quite.

"Jinto," her soft voice snapped as fiercely as it was able. It was harsh slap of a moth's wing. A mere call for attention and acknowledgement.

"Yes...Lafiel?" Jinto asked nervously because he knew Lafiel did not shout when she was angriest. She was one of those who when she smiled- it might be the last thing one ever sees. Yet he had seen her smile a softer, more sentiment-laden smile. It was a smile she wore only for him. He took her hand into his own to kindle it. Like a mysterious light playing across the surfaces of the moon, a contentment which was uncertain rose.

"Jinto," Lafiel spoke again, although without much of the harshness of urgency. She leaned closer to his ear. As if to share a secret.

"Yes. My precious Imperial Princess," Jinto whispered back. The secret was shared. Her slender fingers tested his hair- finding the ends jagged with frays. "I want to show you how the colony I am building is progressing. Then we should speak of business. After you show me the secrets," Lafiel spoke. She dropped her voice lower as if one might hear them in the empty room. Yet only orchids in vases, chairs, and fountains of water remained with them after the cats had stalked off, back into the rose bushes of the lover's garden. For yes. Yes, that was their secret as an Abh noble and a Baron. "Show me Jinto," Lafiel said tipping him back with her fingertips as her long wave of hair lowered to his chest. "Show me the secrets of intimacy of the land people of Hyde."

So they were lovers, then. And as they rode up the long elevators to a viewing platform for the space colony, and to its command bridge, Jinto reflected on how long they had been. How pleasant it had been growing up alongside her. And yet now he was growing old, like a cat. And yet she was not. Being an Abh by birth had granted her a certain timelessness.

During the long ride up the elevator he studied her face. As if there might be a mirror to reflect back the questions he asked about himself on it. But then she caught him staring.

"Hm? Jinto?" she asked him. "Is something wrong? Are you feeling unwell? You are staring as if one or both of us might be fevered," she rounded out with the barest touch of irritation.

"Oh, no! I wasn't thinking of anything like that!" Jinto responded quickly. Nimble on his tongue when required to be, he spoke. "I was just thinking aobut how long it's been since I met you. And how long it's been since we've been here. How is the world building coming?"

Silent, head slightly lowered as she concentrated on a keypad, Lafiel lowered her guantled hand to interact with the surface of the keypad. There was a hiss nd beep as it slid back and the door to the command bridge cracked open.

"It is going well, I suppose," Lafiel said. "Although some of it is thanks to you! You give very good advice for a land person." Lafiel took up residence in a chair and crossed her ankle modestly. Jinto lowered himself in a similarly sculpted "U" beside her.

"Well, I am a land person," he joked. "So I more or less know what the land is supposed to be. And what things are useful. Like rivers!"

"Yes. You are," Lafiel stated bluntly, as if immune to sarcasm. She shut her eyes for a moment as if a great grief tired her.

"Jinto?" she asked speculatively. "You know I've asked you here for a reason. And it isn't just the rivers or the plans for composite minerals. It's something serious."

"Can't we tour the progress on the colony first?" Jinto joked.

"Very well," Lafiel said with a dignity Jinto could not match.

Incredible was all Jinto might say about the world... no worlds Lafiel was building. A Dutchess herself in holdings, the solar system she had been appointed at birth was a modest solar system in the galaxy named for its rosy red glow. No inhabitable planets swung within spiral orbits at its start, and yet soon it would for the Abh were destroyers of worlds. And their creators.

The afterburners of their spacecraft propelled them forward as Lafiel steered a modest space communication craft above the surface of a huge asteroid. In the distance, and entire fleet or space cargo ships and tug boats steered these asteroids and more towards a massive metalic knot as tall as any planet was wide. Sparks seemed to shoot out of its apex like dull fireworks.

"See?" Lafiel declared with modest victory. "That is the electromagnetic core. It will remain active until enough material and sentiments are moved into place that it will begin to seal itself. Then it will, by natural processes, distort and sink to become its natural core."

"Why?" Jinto questioned.

"Because it is naturally heavier element, of course," Lafiel explained with great patience, "and not a little, either."

"But won't finding a rapid route through space-time to your new planet from an established one be difficult?" he asked, willing to keep the conversation going. Up ahead of them, enough asteroids had been piled in rings around the metallic core so that Jinto might easy imagine them all pulling together to make a planet, although a very small and uninhabitable one.

"No," Lafiel remonstrated. "For the algorithm for finding the quickest route between any number of spaces between places is simplified if one takes into account of volume of a sphere, and deducts or adds within its three dimensional space in addition to calculating the least and greatest possibilities of distances traveled. Finding potential quick routes can be estimated using flat, two dimensional lines strung together by points, but such calculations tend to be inaccurate and are difficult to run by shear volume. So it is better to switch to a third-dimensional space when considering routes, even in terms of mileage."

"Oh," Jinto said scratching his face in perplexment. "Of course! But of course, Lafiel, how long will it take these planets to be built?"

"Hm," Lafiel reflected on it. "Forty years for the first planet at minimum. And the others won't be completed within my lifetime. But I hope to at least begin colonizing the first planet here."

"Will you take your roses?" Jinto murmurred in question.

"That was my intent," came Lafiel's reply. "Someday I will make it a planet of roses."

"Not just roses, surely!" Jinto laughed fondly.

"Not just roses, no. And how about you, Jinto? How is your novel coming?"

"Oh, me?" The man born on a planet much like Earth, so long ago, laughed. "It's going well. Sometimes not so well, but I like it so far."

"I like the characters," Lafiel observed. "It really seems that the teacher knows his pupil."

"Oh. That's just me," Jinto laughed at himself weakly. "Sometimes I think of the man who raised me."

"Yes?" Lafiel pressed after he had paused in sorrow.

"He was a good teacher in some ways although we had our disagreements. But sometimes it's both- I'm both the master and the pupil," Jinto sought to explain as he scratched his chin.

"Yes?" Lafiel waited with great expectation.

"Sometimes I'm me as a little kid," Jinto elaborated to his confidant. "And sometimes it's myself- the older and wiser me, wearing my master's mask, staring back at the younger and lost me," Jinto finished sadly to Lafiel. Their spacecraft shifted its course, then slowed to dock aboard a tall ship which stood apart from either the glimmering cluster of ships that was the space colony or the industrial complex building a planet off in the distance.

"Here we are," Lafiel stated as she pressed holographic buttons. A light reading, "prepare to disembark" flashed across a rounded, high-tech screen. "Now Jinto, you know there was something really important I wanted to speak with you about. Remember the laws of Abh about the three duties one must fulfill in one's lifetime?"

"Hm?" Jinto thought, thinking with exceptional slowness. "To serve in military is one of them... but the third... ahh!" Jinto paled as he recalled the third requisite of all Abh, especially nobility. He gaped.

"Exactly," Lafiel stated out loud for him as she pressed her fingertips against a door latch to open it. She stared back over her should at her aghast companion. "It's to raise Abh children. And with your having been born a human, it's been deemed necessary for the succession of your planet that you consider having children made for you, to act as your successors, sooner than later." From with the room they entered, a newer, unexpected voice spoke.

"That is exactly the case," a tall Abh woman declared with all the adornment and regality of a noblewoman. Jinto quickly bowed his head in respect to the Empress of the Abh Empire.


	3. Chapter 3

**Here is more story request! Based on Crest of the Stars and its sequel, Banner of the Stars, by Hiroyuki Morioka. Apparently, the novels are ongoing, so please check them out if you can.**

Jinto quaked. The Empress of the Abh Empire herself had come to speak with him. A powerful figure of an even more powerful Empire. And so he bowed, wary indeed of being deemed a traitor or foe in the eyes of a woman whom had ordered the destruction of countless lives to maintain the existence of her own race and the society it had built on ashes.

"I hope I haven't been remiss in my duties," the man inquired, his voice scratching gravelly with humility. But his observer's first reply was a faint and inscrutable smile. It was impossible to tell if the Empress was either pleased or angry with him, just as it sometimes was with Lafiel. In this, the two blood relatives mirrored one another.

"Not as yet," the stern matriarch of the Empire said in a soft, honey-soaked voice which curled as sprightly as a song. Jinto paused. Would his voice betray him as he spoke out? The boy grown to a man fumbled with his words, yet they echoed through the chamber.

"What command may I obey, your Highness?" was Jinto's wise apology. A light softening to the Empress's stern express was his reward.

"If you understand your tardiness in observing the third and final duty of all Abh, noble or otherwise, then you understand what it is you should do. You do remember the Law of Inheritance of the Kin of the Stars, don't you?" Jinto scratched his head awkwardly.

"Well, yes, I do, I admit it. But…. perhaps I am a little uncertain as to how to go about it. It seems monumental and foreign to me."

"The task of raising a child is monumental," the Queen spoke out loud, much warmer and more merciful in her demeanor than before. "But the task is not insurmountable. There are many more experienced in the task you can turn to. And not a few academic articles. But to begin, you need only to attend an appointment I have had my personal steward arrange for you, and your companion, Lafiel, has already agreed to take you to this place at this time to discuss and make your decision."

"This seems… very sudden. Your Highness!" Jinto sweated.

"Based on your age and the culture of your native planet, I can not accept these words as an excuse," spoke the woman with a sniff of dismissal. Jinto's head sunk with his spirit.

"Very well. It is just as you say, your Highness. I will do your bidding and attend this meeting."

"Good," the woman spoke. "But I must emphasize that this task, this dire duty conferred on you is not just a sacred one of choice. It is necessity. The Abh must replenish their population amply. You, yourself as Barron, should make certain to leave behind one or better yet five heirs so that your substantial territory of Hyde can be ruled in perpetuity."

"And it will never return back to an electorally governed planet?"

"Not as long as the Kin of the Stars reign ALL the solar system," was the Empress's chilling answer. Jinto bowed.

"Very well, your Highness. I will plan on at least two of them." He bowed. The mighty woman in a dress so bright and brilliant in its length and folds stood before him a few moments longer before striding out through the sliding spaceroom door. Jinto heaved another breath of relief as his imposing monarch departed. Then Lafiel was stood by his side, staring at him with her with large, brilliant oceanic-blue eyes and a cat-like curiosity. Her lip pulled down into a fretful frown.

"You really know how to ask for trouble, don't you?" was her criticism. Jinto grimaced. He really could not argue with her statement.

"If you're finished here," said Lafiel a touch more mildly. "Then follow me to the nearest spaceport. A cruiser is already prepared for our journey."

"Wah?!" Jinto lamented. "Already?"

"Do you want to eat first?" Lafiel asked with an Abh's tradition of consideration. She gestured.

"No!" Jinto dissented. Lafiel turned to walk away from him, a curtain of long, blue hair shielding a sleek white spacesuit from view.

"Then let's go!" Lafiel demanded of him. And so he followed after.

It was a familiar comfort to Jinto to sit, strapped down in a cockpit chair beside Lafiel's pilot seat as they sailed through the skies of space. Her hand hovered up and down, lightly, in the ship's control box and Jinto watched the woman with her intense focus as she steered their craft onwards. But then they reached a long span of invisible road and Lafiel switched to autopilot. Jinto felt his nerves stirring, and words seemed to burst out of his stomach.

"Uh, Lafiel?" the man asked, fretting. This was the woman he loved, despite all their differences in status, culture, and even origin. His heart swooned as she tipped her head sideways at him.

"Yes?" she quizzically asked. So radiant were her eyes! How dazzling her stare! How perfect her teeth and the curve of her throat! For even among Abh, she was a flawless jewel, chosen by her forebearers to be their inheritor even at the moment of her conception.

"Have you ever… well, I know you have! But would you consider maybe having children made for yourself at this time as well?" Jinto pleaded. "We could raise them together! What I mean is, while two parents working together is uncommon among Abh, it is VERY common practice among the people of my planet!"

"Ah," Lafiel spoke with forced delicateness. "Do you mean to ask me to help you raise yours?"

"Well, I would help you to raise your children, too! It would make it easier for both of us! So what do you say?!"

"Hm. I'll agree to that," said Lafiel with all the cold, calculatedness of a true Abh. "We're almost there," the woman said pressing some backlit buttons. "Please prepare yourself for some shifting in our altitude." Jinto fell silent. He had been on enough flights with Lafiel to know when it was best to sit back with his jaw clenched, lest he bit his tongue by mistake as the ship left its smooth orbit for tighter turns. With trepidation, he waited impatiently for Lafiel to slow their ship, then curl it into a depressurized loading dock. Vast metal doors sealed behind them and the sound of air rushing into the a chamber might have met his ears if he had been outside the ship in his spacesuit to hear it. The workers clustered around their small spacecraft with long cables to anchor the shuttle securely certainly did.

A communication blinked on- a bight blue holograph. Lafiel spoke with the people on screen for a moment. Then Jinto got up and followed Lafiel's example of heading for the ship's departure hatchway. It lowered to reveal the dockworkers and a few guards, all with hands lifted to their heads to honor Jinto's status as the reigning noble of a populated solar system. Jinto walked a long, tense walk through those two lines, with his longtime companion by his side. He steadied himself as best as he was able as he was shown to a comfortable seating area and with several Abh wearing med suits. Medical equipment hung on every wall of the vast chamber.

"Er, so…" Jinto began awkwardly. "I'm here for my appointment?" Annoyed by him, Lafiel nudged his elbow.

"Make it two appointments, if you may!" Lafiel chirped. "I humbly request one after Jinto's for my own successor!"

"Lafiel!" Jinto admired Lafiel's habitual courage.

"We can make those accommodations," spoke one woman as another typed something down in a computer terminal. "And what of you, Jinto? Have you decided on your request? What is it you would like done with your genes?"

"Well, I would like to have a successor made," spoke up Jinto. "Someone a bit like me. But not. Maybe a female like Lafiel," he said hinting. But Lafiel did not catch the hint latent in his words. She did not react to it. So he prompted.

"Uh, Lafiel, what do you think of that?" he fished.

"I think it's an excellent idea," she answered. Jinto pressed his hand against his forehead with torment and grasped his lover's arm. "Lafiel, there's something I'd like to ask you in private, for a moment, if I may?"

The Abh Princess and the Barron, born an ordinary, mortal man stepped outside into the hallway. Jinto curled his strong arms around the Abh princess's back and nested his chin against her hair-strewn shoulder.

"Lafiel, I don't think you're quite comprehending. I mean... What I really want to say is… what I want you to say is that you'd consider me a worthy candidate for a child of love… between the two of us. I'd like for you to lend me your genes, Lafiel. There's no one else who genes' I'd rather have a child made from. Of course, I'd understand if you refuse. No one would envy a man exiled from his own planet because his father gave up that planet's sovereignty to its enemy empire. And I have no long lineage or its accomplishments to boast about."

"But you have you!" Lafiel spoke up abruptly. Her long, soft finger pressed against Jinto's lips to silence him. "And your emotions and passions more than make up for that for me. You fill my days with amusement. So we will do as you ask." The two entwined their hands together for a few moments before they straightened their clothes and dignities to return the medical laboratory.

"We have made our decisions," Lafiel announced for him.

As they flew away from the place on their small spaceship, steering the craft for the space colony that was the center of entire worlds being built, Jinto shuffled through a stack of files he had uploaded to his scanner. He opened one on the small screen of his terminal and gawked.

"Huh? Lafiel? There's a file on the child we ordered to have created for myself using your genes, but there are three more files here!

"Of course!" was Lafiel's prompt retort. "One is the child of love I ordered to raise to be the inheritor to myself. Another is a clone of myself ordered by my father. He was very worried that I would get myself killed during active duty, so he issued that request. Do not worry, Jinto, he will be raising my 'sibling' by himself.

"A clone of…. You?" Jinto pressed a hand against his head as if he might be nauseous. "Then what is the fourth one?"

"Oh. You said at first that you wanted two offspring. So one is a clone of yourself… with some standardized genetic data to make it female."

"What?!" Jinto gasped, dropping all calm completely. "I don't remember asking for that!"

"It must have been a misunderstanding," Lafiel spoke up with some of her rare and beautiful compassion. "But it's too late now. We will simply have an extra child to take care of for the time being."

"Yes," Jinto groaned, plainly struggling to accept the bad with the good.


	4. Chapter 4

**This chapter is co-authored by my old pal, Faceless Dragon. I'll editing it some to suit me before posting. Some parts are less beautiful than expected because someone turned off the internet on me and I had rewrite the whole thing! RAGES!**

Her azure hair cascaded down to the small of her back, her eyes sparkling brighter than the stars themselves. To Jinto she was as beautiful as the day he met him all those decades ago, because she was.

"Ready?" she asked.

"As I can be," Jinto replied.

For Jinto rising was a challenge. First he and Lafiel had to shoo away the orange tiger cat that had gotten too comfortable curled on his lap. It lept away meowing in protest. Then Jinto had to struggle against his own creaking bones to push off the sofa. Lafiel cupped her hand under his right shoulder, and placed the other on his upper back. Her touch was the warmest thing he could ever feel.

Assisted to his feet, he limped. Lafiel positioned herself to his side to brace him if he lost balance.

"Maybe I should shut off gravity next time," she muttered with concern.

Jinto chuckled. "That would cause other problems." Jinto smiled in humor. Then, both he and Lafiel made their way down the hall of the spaceship vessel, stopping in the middle. Jinto stared at the metal wall. Lafiel pressed a button and the metal shade opened up. Jinto gasped at what they looked down on. The place where they had come to was a perfect vantage point for all that Lafiel had created. A sapphire world with tracks of land splayed across some of its surface, and white clouds floating over it.

Jinto gasped. "The atmosphere. It's clear now, and the ocean...There's even spots of green on the land."

Lafiel smiled. "It's coming along, our world." Jinto's eyes were as wide and bright as an excited child. Lafiel had been worried that she wouldn't have been able to get planet formatted, before Jinto passed, but seeing him alive for this moment almost brought on tears.

He turned to her. "Can we make landfall? Explore our new home?!"

Lafiel's smile faded. She looked on to the world being born.

"Not just yet. I have...an experiment to run."

"What kind of experiment?" Jinto asked. Lafiel flicked on a computer terminal with her fingertip and typed out a message on its holographic keyboard. Chin nested on Lafiel's shoulder, Jinto read the communications for himself before she might send the communications on.

"You're seriously sending a message like that to the clone of yourself your father raised?" he asked, bemused.

"It is a little self-interested of me, I'll admit," Lafiel said as flicked the computer terminal she had been using off again, "to wonder what will happen if my clone is allowed to explore my new world. But he is an Abriel, after all," Lafiel reacted to Jinto's well-placed, subtle, criticism. "It is a respectable invitation between family."

"What an extraordinary family it is, too!" Jinto clasped his forehead with one hand as the truth spun in it. "What an extraordinary one my is!"

"It is the way of the Abh," Lafiel stated blandly with a plain truth.

"Or the way of a cunning matchmaker," Jinto observed, all-knowing about his companion.

"Perhaps," Lafiel smiled with an amused and sly grin.

* * *

The girl in the pink and orange, summer dress gasped in exhaustion, her cheeks flushed bright scarlet. The sleeveless linen cloth she wore was airy and light, and yet, in this newly formed world's heat, perhaps something to discourage sunburn would have been better. Still, she pressed on through the field of emergent flowers, her will an invisible rope to pull her forward, but after another few moments her exertion became too much. So she sought shelter in a tree's shade. She placed her one hand on the tree's limb and the other over her pounding heart. She closed her eyes, She felt the world spin. It was so hot out that she felt faint. The girl tilted backwards, but not for long.

"Gotcha."

When the girl opened her eyes she saw drifting clouds floating up against a blue background, and felt strong hands supporting her back. She felt so comfortable in her position that she might have been lulled to sleep, then the one holding her brought his face into her view. "Are you alright?" It suddenly dawned on the girl that she had toppled backwards into the arms of a stranger. He still watched over her now. She jumped back up to her feet.

"Y...yes. I'm fine. Thank you." The girl ran her hands over her summer dress to press out the wrinkles, before assessing the boy before her.

The boy stood an inch taller than her, his azure hair cut short and cropped to reveal his pointed ears, his violet eyes so bright and deep that for a second she was lost in them. "You shouldn't push yourself," He said. "You could die of exhaustion."

The girl rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "Yes, I suppose you're right. I'll be more careful." The girl backed away. She held no grudge against the boy, but not knowing who he was she felt unsafe. "Well thank you again..." The girl curtsied, "...but I really must get going. She backed away a few steps more. "Take care." She turned around only to screech with alarm. Her footsteps had brought her centimeters from rushing into a hedge of thorny rose bushes.

The boy shook his head at her folly. "At least rest a bit." The girl sighed in embarrassment.

The two sat on a tree branch. They looked out to field of roses, bending in waves under the strength of the wind. When the wind calmed bees and humming birds hummed back into the flowers.

"So what were you doing?" The boy asked.

"Me?" the girl asked. "I was..." The girl felt a great fog over her mind. She couldn't recall what she was doing or what she had been doing, but after thinking long and hard it all came flooding back.

"...I was exploring my father's estate."

"Your estate?" the man mused. "But it was to my understanding that this is the solar system belonging to Viscountess Paryunu. No one else."

"Hm," the girl mulled. "It is true that this is the The Planet of Roses and belongs solely to the Viscountess as a governing territory. But she has also granted my father the Count Hyde a small parcel of acreage for use as a personal residence apart from his own home planet."

"So you're a baroness?"" The boy asked. The girl nodded.

The girl jumped down from the tree branch. "Baroness Jinta." Jinta curtsied. "A pleasure to make you're acquaintance." Jinta looked to the boy expectantly.

"You want to know my name?" The boy placed his finger on his chin as his violet eyes looked up into his thoughts, then he clapped his heels together and stiffened his spine. "Lafin Abliarsec Neric Dubleuser Parhynr Lamhirh. Or Count Lafin Abriel. Who are you?" For a second the girl stood lost in the boy's eyes, but when her name was asked her name she was jolted to awareness. "Oh. I'm..." the girl was confused. It took her a moment to recall who she was, and what she was titled. Her eyes brightened when it came to her.

"I'm Baroness Jinta Hyde. Linn Ssynce Rocr larlucec Dreuc Ghintac." She curtsied again.


	5. Chapter 5

Lafiel's sapphire blue eyes were large and luminous as she uttered to herself and the roses she watered, her nose pressed between the jagged leaves and softly fragrant blooms. As she spoke, her breath was hardly more than a whisper, as though she feared the cats might overhead and repeat her words. "Two clones of two separate lovers- Jinta and Lafin," Lafiel uttered to herself, her eyes sparkling with delight, yet equally sorrowful and thoughtful as they shimmered with her hopes. "What will happen when the two meet? Will their love bloom as a flower? Or will it fade?" Lafiel looked sadly down at at a creamy white bloom flecked with swirls of pastel pink. She clutched its velvet petals between her thumb and forefinger, then released it to whirl away from it on her heel to look at the glass barrier to space overhead. A thousand stars in a milky-white galaxy lay overhead. She clasped her hands together over her heart as she spoke. "Will their love never bud? Or will it blossom and grow with time... as mine and Jinto's did? But I hope time will be more kind to them," Lafiel murmured to herself as she watched the aged Jinto dozing on a couch. "For they are both true Kin of the Stars and so will live on long into the colonization of this planet.. a planet of roses and humankind." Lafiel cupped her hands around a rose plant- this time one with vibrant yellow blossoms- one of the rarer and more fussy colors among roses. Then she left off speaking to admire them blossoms and return to Jinto's side. The old Barron still dozed on- unaware that she had spoken. Yet she looked down on him with fondness, a picked yellow blossom in one hand and the other curled around her heart as she looked at the man she loved and his favorite pet cat, curled up together in the conservatory she had made for them to share.

But Lafiel had made far more than a conservatory filled with roses. She had made a whole planet of them. Lower down below the space station home where they drifted, and beyond a stretch of spaceships flying busily back and forth between resource harvest points and the nearest space-time sord was a small solar system of four planets. One, slightly larger than the others, was covered much by land, but also a rich abundance of water. At the edges of its sapphire oceans and rivers of gleaming silver, the emerald green of lush plant life licked the precious moisture around them and with roots to anchor them, crept ever inward to the barren landscape that was their new planet home.

On this home of a newly formed planet, there were two life forms every bit as cultivated as the rows of roses planted all around them. Jinta, in her airy, sleeveless summer dress, curtsied politely to Lafin. He was an Abh- and a proud one. Like an alternate mirror to Lafiel, he seemed tall and elegant for he was slender, even if his build was not as tall as some of the hulking men of Mankind. He was flawless like the snowflake yet more eternally sharp-edged like steel. And yet, regarding the girl before him, he took on a softer gaze. Humbly, he offered his hand.

"Allow me to escort you to more appropriate place to rest..."

"But I haven't explored everywhere yet!" the girl interjected, her brow knotted below mousy-brown bangs.

"Then we will explore together!" was his answer. The girl's cheeks took on the lightest rosy blush so that she matched the garden scape around her. Relenting, she lent her fingertips to him so that Lafin might slide her arm interlocked with his. And so they stepped forward to explore this new world. Jinta felt her heart thudding within her chest. With a coy, sidelong glace, she flickered her gaze upward to admire Lafin before snapping her head back so rapidly that the two tiny braids on either side of her face swung forward and back like pendulums.

Acres of flowers in full bloom. Acres of hedges. The occasional novice tree. Lafin lifted a hand up to wave to a gardener in greeting. They moved across the landscape with their pruners like deer grazing.

"Hm," Lafin said at last in loud, strong, booming voice. "It's getting late. How about we go to the nearest colony town and I treat you to dinner?"

"Ohhh! Is that really allowed?" Jinta fret. "We're nobility. We normally dine at my father's estate, or with the Grand Duchess!"

"Just because you are a nobleman of the Abh Empire does not mean that the local merchants will not take your coin," Lafin lectured, but softly.

"No," Jinta spoke with a shy shake to her head. "But I do not carry any money on me."

"Your communicator has all the access you need- to electronically encrypted currency." Lafin pointed to the bracelet-like device on her hand. Then he held up his own wrist. The communicator he wore was more akin to an archer's brace with its long support structure of steel running the full length of the back of his hand.

"Oh!" Jinta flustered. "I forgot about that! I've always been so well-taken care of, I've never really used it much."

"But I've been training in supplies management! Much like your father. But truly, I aim to be a pilot. Of my own fleet someday, perhaps!" Lafin boasted.

"Do you fly now?" Jinta pressed.

"No. Not unless I'm in training. But I do like to drive small personal vehicles. I guess you might call them... cars for short."

"Do we have such things on this planet?" Jinta tipped her head sideways. Lafin cracked a grin.

"Actually, you'd be surprised. It's one of the things I've come here to see for myself. How do you feel about watching a sport race between vehicles? They've imported a number of them to this planet for this express reason. There is plenty of room for a large track. And we can find you some food there! Care to go?"

"Hm. I'll need to tell Father where I'm going or he'll worry, but I will," Jinta relented at last. Her soft and reluctant smile grew broader. She clicked on her bracelet-like communicator and spoke into it.

Within the space station, Jinto stirred from his nap at the sound of a message on his own communicator on his arm. A cat ran in panic from its ringing, then the man spoke into it, pausing to listen to the hologram figure on the other end. Then he turned off the device to stand, stretch, and hobble over to Lafiel to smile.

"Well, it looks like you got your wish, Lafiel. Your scheme for those two seems to be working."

"It's just the elders giving a guiding hand to the young!" Lafiel objected with a gentle box in her tone. "But I am uncommonly pleased at their expense." Jinto laughed whole-heartedly.


	6. Chapter 6

Lafin and Jinta made their way out of the green-space planted with roses onto a curling manor house road. The manor of the estate rose on the skyline to the east, but Lafin made no motion to shuffle towards it. Instead, he pulled up his arm and spoke into the communicator on the length of his forearm. He stood about with a cool air, staring expectantly toward the distant manor.

Her hands crossed primly over the skirt of her dress, Jinta waited in reverent silence. A stirring of dust whipped up on the newly smoothed dirt lane, then a humble four-door vehicle neared them. Jinta could feel the faint flick of angry pebbles and a spattering of dust against her legs where her sundress cut off as an autumn-orange motorcar speedily arrived to brake near them. From near the road, they had been able to hear the crunch of the tires against dirt, but the motor was remarkably silent due to Abh engineering. Truly, the Abh had pushed the limits of silence more than their ancestors, mankind, had.

"Oooh!" Jinta shrieked softly with a delighted gleam. "How rustic! An automotive with a round steering wheel! So that's how you got here!" Jinta knotted her knees together like a fan girl as she raked her eyes over the novice sight before her. There had been no driver. Lafin opened the side door to the car with one and with a sweeping bow, bid her to enter.

"I keep it on autopilot when I have no need of it," Lafin explained as he sat smoothly behind the leather-clad wheel. Jinta slid into the side chair and angled a stare sideways. Lafin's muscular legs were a perfect vision but she did not allow her eyes to travel further up his black, violet, and red-trimmed spacesuit. Instead. Lafin griped the wheel and she swung her eyes forward in preparation for the ride.

"Here we go!" Lafin cheered. Momentarily, he darted out a hand to curl it around behind her back to give her a bracing, almost affectionate squeeze from rear shoulder to shoulder. Jinta gasped and was glad it was not her front he had hugged, or her blush would be much broader, her eyes sunk lower still with humility. But a wrinkle of pleasure lingered around her lips.

"Yes!" Jinta managed to breath out. Her flustered expression softened as Lafin steered them manually down the road.

"Bumps!" Lafin explained nonchalantly as they hit a bit of the unsmoothed road. "This is one of the classic models, so it does not have hover specs on its wheels to lower fuel consumption. It is in constant contact, and friction, with the ground!"

"I see!" Jinta said, trying to see the tires through one of the sideview cameras that hung where a rear-facing mirror might have in the cars of the past. Lafin kept his eyes forward on a round, ovular, curving holographic screen that gave him a complete camera view of all the lay to the rear of the vehicle. Then he flicked them back toward all that lay ahead.

"Hm? You do not use your extrasensory?" Jinta pointed to a triangle-shaped port as she spoke. If Lafin had placed a cable there, he might have been able to not use his eyes to steer at all, but rather react to virtual reality data fed through the cable to his extrasensory organ in his ears. With these, Abh had enhanced spatial perception.

"No," was Lafin's simple answer. "That would be cheating. I require practice if I am going to race with handicaps, as I should. Get ready now. We are almost to the town settlement. We can stop for a drink there."

"Oh?" Jinta echoed him. It was true that rectangular dwellings and shops flickered all around them as they sped past. More and more, the buildings were built wall to wall with little yard space between them until they had come to a true downtown street. Although the road was dirt yet, someone had made an effort to dump gravel here and there. A few cars like Lafin's were parked here and there down the street, but mostly it was lined by small transport bikes or a few friendly burros.

"Ah, the charms of an underdeveloped planet!" someone remarked from very near to them. That someone had been mounted on a motorbike, and after setting the kickstand in its parked position, he pulled the bike helmet off his head to reveal a shock of blue hair. Another Abh.

"Hello, Leroy," Lafin remarked with pleasure, one arm draped across the side of his door and his head cocked to one side. "Off shift?"

"Yeah. I don't have to be on the space station for a full week so I've come down to the planet for well-deserved break! I'm not like most Abhs, you see. I am not obsessed with life in outer space. I like to stretch my legs out for a bit and get away from people! I am three-quarters human, after all. I am glad to see you, Lafin."

"As am I glad to see you," Lafin tilted his head to one side with a touch more boorish pride than his clone-parent's. But it was pride anchored in male ego and not a cruel pride, and so it was forgivable to Jinta.

"Lafin and I keep bumping into one another here," Leroy explained. "We've shared a few drinks."

"My companion here is in need of such drinks!" Lafin spoke loud and slowly, with great emphasis. "Shall we go inside? I do not think it wish for you to go wandering about the city parched!" he spoke imploringly to Jinta. It was so much attention, and yet Jinta could not conclude that it was proof of a romantic interest. And yet, the way her eyes kept drifting to Lafin's sculpted frame kept reassuring her that there was at least a shred of romantic interest from herself.

"Ah!" Jinta fussed, holding her fingernails clutched together as she directed her attention to a menu hung outside a small cafe. "Let us enter there! I will have a small coffee!"

"And some iced juice or tea!" Lafin frowned at her. "A nutrition supplemental drink would be best after all the wandering out in the sun you did!"

"Very well! I will select a whole stockpile of drinks!" Jinta beamed as she bent low over an open display. She fished a teal, and blue, and a murkish brown bottle from inside the cooler and carried them to the counter against her chest. Once there, she ordered a small expresso as well.

Jinta, Lafin, and Leroy all sat at the table, gently sipping their drinks in the pleasant air conditioning of the cafe. Seated directly beside them were none, but at the most distant of tables there were ordinary humans with their lobed and rounded ears. Only at one table was another Abh seated as he spoke, his jagged, pointed ears making him stand out among the settlers.

"Not many Abhs, here," Leroy observed, following Lafin's manner of thinking. "But not to worry! Most everyone here has high esteem of the Abh! Most come from planets long under their dominion, and are fully loyal to her Highness, the Empress."

Leroy lifted an expresso he had purchased for himself to take a long and savoring sip. "Ah, this place is great! Do they add aromatic oils to their brew water?"

"It does seems that way," Lafin agreed, his arms drooped over the back of his chair in a poor posture again. And yet, when he stood, that poor posture utterly disappeared for his back was strong and hale. "When we get to the race track, there may be a few exceptions. Some of the top competitors from other planets are not quite so fond of Abhs. Some on them might even be called Federationists."

"That damn United Nation of Mankind!" Leroy scoffed as if his coffee now tasted bitter instead of smooth and robust. "Even after losing the war and signing a treaty to retain a handful of independent planets, their followers continue to cause problems! It would be better for us all if they consigned themselves to having lost and learn to live with the government they have now."

"That is not the way of true loyalists," Lafin observed. "You and I would have a difficult time serving the United Nation of Mankind if our side had lost."

"They would not have permitted our kind to live at all!" Leroy scoffed.

"Ours was a necessary victory," Lafin spoke with a deeper conviction than his prior ones. "But I do not care to debate politics too much in a public space. Shall we go now?"

"Um, hm!" Jinta smiled. She rushed up onto her feet and darted forward to cling onto Lafin's arm with so much enthusiasm that Lafin was caught off balance for a moment.

"Fhew!" Leroy whistled, lifting up his wrist telecom. "Mind if I take a holo-cam of you two? You look so damn cute together!"

"Be silent now, please!" was Lafin's remonstance. Leroy laughed- a hearty, joyful laugh.

"Hm, I need to ride my own bike, but maybe we can meet up together at the race station!" Leroy grinned. Then he winked. "Be nice now to your new friend."

"Hm," Lafin glowered as if Leroy had tinkered with his fuse. After Leroy had gone, he spoke in a whisper to Jinta. "My clone-mother and your clone-father are odd ones by Abh standards, but I fail to see what he means by that."

"Hm," Jinta flittered her eyes away, for she had more imagination that she wished at the moment. She could very easily imagine herself and Lafin embracing like human lovers the way the appointed noble and high-born royal did. So to distract herself from temptation, she cast her gaze into one of the shop windows of the street.

"Oooh!" Jinta cooed. She pressed her nose against the shop glass to look at something within. Then she pointed. "Wait for me out here!"

In a few minutes, Jinta returned to the sproingy sidewalk of poured rubber mixed into tar. Under her arms, she carried a large doll roughly in the shape of an oval.

"What is that?" Lafin asked, stood with one heel rolled back further than the other. He examined the doll with pink and purple hair and a sparkly dress.

"It's a child's first communicator!" Jinta giggled out as she pressed down on a dial. The chest of the doll sprung open to reveal a tiny television screen. "This one is based on Mrs. Sparkles. She was one of my favorite characters as a child so I was happy to let her act as my babysitter. These things are a version of a baby monitor for older kids, but see? They follow you around and walk and talk. Aren't they cute?! I had one when I was a little girl. My father bought one for me."

"So this device will keep an eye on you?" Lafin asked. "Good! If you get lost at the race track, at least you won't be lonely."

"I won't be bored, either," Jinta sniffed. "These things come with a number of family shows and music to play, too!" Jinta tapped on a touchscreen.

"Ha!" Lafin laughed one as he smiled. "But I hope you will at least try to watch my race!"

"I look forward to it," Jinta said as she stood up with her new Mrs. Sparkles toy hugged tight against her chest.

 **To be continued.**


	7. Chapter 7

The air-splitting sounds of combustion engines gunning were covered not so discretely by the rumbling voices of a crowd a hundred thousand strong at the race track. It was incredulous that in a few short years, a stadium a few miles in length had gone up on the surface of a new-built planet and had gained renown, but there it lay before Jinta's wide and wondering eyes. Besides the overwhelming sights and sounds, the enticing scents of cooking grease and fried vendor's food wend their way into Jinta nostrils. Jinta's smile spread wide, and her heart skipped with joy for an instant. But the press of the crowd around them- so tight that there was only just enough space for them to walk singly through the foot-traffic- caused her to hug her newly bought Mrs. Sparkles toy tight against her chest out of anxiety. The Abh girl's elbows brushed against those of a stranger, and so Jinta folded her arms tighter around her body, curled against the vibrantly-colored toy.

"Where are we going?" Jinta asked, sounding a little like a child. But her body spoke a different language. Her sundress stretched to a high point of her thigh, and from behind, it did more to emphasize the dip of her tailbone than to hide it. A few heads turned her way at her pleasing figure as she passed.

Jinta clutched the Mrs. Sparkles toy tighter to her chest. In a sense, holding such a child's toy might have seemed to have made her more childlike, but it did not. Pressed between bountiful breasts and against an enticing line of skin that showed above the front seam of her short-strapped dress, Jinta was no undeverdeveloped child. Instead, the effect of holding the children's doll was to make her seem more maternal, as if she were a mother longing for a child by clutching her abandoned toy.

Turned half-around on his heel, Lafin narrowed an eye at Jinta with a touch of irritation. If she hesitated to walk forward in a crowd this big, she would get lost. He walked backward past their friend Leroy, then hooked his arm through the open loop by her elbow to lock his shoulder with hers.

"Come on!" he demanded. Shoulder to shoulder, Jinta and Lafin stepped briskly through the crowd behind Leroy until they came to the arched gate of a concrete tunnel. This descending path led down, past another gate. Once there they passed uneasily into the view of a capped security guard, but it was quieter here, and the ground more level. Ordinary visitors to the stadium might have had no business here, but Lafin showed a metallic card to the guardsman. This was card examined by the man, then placed into a tall round pillar. The strange obelisk before them was a machine. When the card Lafin had provided was swiped, a pair of automatic doors sprung open to allow them to walk further down the tunnel until they came to a wide open space, full of brown earth, green grass, asphalt race track, and chain-link fences.

"Come on, our garage is over here!" Lafin called to Jinta after he had dropped her arm and paced forward to leave her to straggle after him. Jinta lurched from a standstill, still clutching her doll and staring at everything around her in a childlike wonder. Then she shaded her eyes at a open garage-door before following Lafin inside. The Abh boy kept his head down and his hands jammed in his pockets as he strode forward on his long legs. There were more people here- people both Lafin and his more lobed-eared friend Leroy knew. They conversed with these seemingly ordinary men while Jinta sat down on a little stool someone had left by the door. She fidgeted with her Mrs. Sparkles doll.

"Here!" Lafin said upon returning at last to shove a cold, canned drink into her hand. "Drink, or you'll be dehydrated again! It's a sunny day."

"Thank you," Jinta said curling her ankles together and taking a sip. Lafin eyed her with a touch of skeptism.

"What are you doing there?" he inquired, endeavoring not to sound disdainful.

"Programming the basic settings of my Mrs. Sparkles doll," Jinta explained curtly. "See? Now it knows it is mine. Or rather it has it's user's basic data programmed in. And I was just now getting it to download my favorite songs. See?" Jinta explained. She held up the doll. From within it, a speaker projected a low, rambeling song.

"Hm. I'm glad there is some use for it besides fulfilling a fanciful whim."

"Hmph!" Jinta growled. "Of course there is some use for it! Most collectibles are fanciful, but this thing can be useful, too! Here!"

Jinta handed a sturdy wristband to Lafin's friend Leroy whom had come with them. "If I get separated from you, you can use this tracking device to find me."

"Hm. nice. But with all due respect, you can always call us on your communicator!" Leroy coughed as he awkwardly accepted the device and strapped it to his wrist.

"Oh! I never thought of that!" exclaimed Jinta. "Still, take it all the same, please. I might lose it otherwise." The plainclothed man with only slightly pointed Abh ears strapped the electronic bracelet to his wrist behind his own communicator while, ignoring this exchange, Lafin strapped on his racing gloves. He added sleek goggles, then, with poise and calm, he pressed a walnut-colored helmet down on his head and tightened the straps below his chin.

"Leroy and you may watch the race from a higher-booth," Lafin explained, extending a pair of tickets for Leroy to take. "I need to finish preparing my car for the race."

"Go for it, my boy!" Leroy grinned. "Then we can both go out to a club and I'll pick up a lady friend for myself so that it's a proper couple's night out!"

"You really have picked up the social habits of the surface planets, haven't you?" Lafin tipped his head. "I plan to celebrate this victory by taking a drift in the low-gravity room back in my space-pod."

"Ah, spoken like a true Abh!" Leroy mourned. "But if you change your mind about keeping your feet planted on real land for a little while longer, then come and find me and I'll make it worth your while! And that of your lady friend!" Leroy winked.

"You have.. such curious ways," Jinta wondered out loud as Leroy and herself parted from Lafin to begin a long march up the gated tunnel to find an usher to show them to a viewer's box. When they showed them the tickets, they were escorted to a luxurious box with plush seats and a fine view of the racer's yellow-painted finish line.

"Ah! That's because I have an unusual upbringing!" Leroy smiled. "You and Lafin have, too, in your own ways. A high-born royal raised by his infamous commander grandfather? A clone raised between a human and his Abh lover? You've got to know there is a whole lot of gossip about you on this planet, as you are some of the highest-ranked Abh in this solar system."

"I'm not the only one in my family!" Jinta corrected him firmly. "All of my family are famous. Lafiel is like a mother to me. Then there is my father, Viscount Hyde, and my sister and brother. But they are proper mixes of the DNA of both my mother and father and not a pure clone at all." Jinta hung her head as a tint of shame spread on it. "Sometimes I feel I am the only strange one. But then again most of the Abh I have ever met are clones."

"Yet the majority of the humans are not," Leroy spoke for her, a touch of compassion rounding out his voice. "So coming down to a planet where that's the norm must feel odd."

"Yes," Jinta nodded. "I am lost between two worlds. Two cultures. That of my clone-father's and the traditions of Abh."

"Even the cultural traditions of Abh will shift with time," Leroy guessed. "It was unheard of back in the day, because of Imperial Law, but some Abh have begun having more space-free lives and mixing with land-dwellers more. My own family is a prime example of this. One of the sisters of a reigning Dutchess fulfilled the mandate of having Abh clones for a legal successor, but then chose a resident-surface-dweller for a companion. My father repeated the example, so here I am- a one-quarter Abh! One couldn't tell I was Abh at all if not for the ears!" Leroy flicked his finger against them, for while they were not high-pointed like Lafiel's, there was an elongation and even a double-lobed groove where a short-rounded arch should be.

"Does it make you sad?" Jinta guessed.

"Nah. Not mostlly," said Leroy. "How about you?"

"Hm. It makes me sad more that my father is not especially liked," said Jinta. She glowered, her toy held tight againt her chest as deep discontent simmered in her eyes and seemd to pull in shadows from the ground she cast her eyes on.

"It's a political situation. The planet my father has governance over abhors him. And so they do me in turn!" Jinta mourned. "And so we live here instead. I have never been there. And maybe I never will."

"Ah, things will calm down eventually!" Leroy grimaced. "Is it a planet that used to belong to the United Nation of Mankind?"

"No. It is a planet that was too isolated to be militarily annexed to their alliance. It fell swiftly to the Abh Empire. But a majority pf the population politically favors the Federationists. They have found a great following on the planet since its adoption in the Abh Empire."

"Time will sort it all out," Leroy advised. "Let's order some luxury snacks to go with these seats, then relax! Turn up the music on that doll, will you?" Leroy said, relaxing into his seat.

"I think I'm beginning to like you," Jinta smiled at her new friend as she did as he asked. Jinta settled down into her seat to watch the race. She hummed along with the musical score projected from her doll as she relaxed. Then the communicator hung on her wrist chimed. A single symbol blinked three times before fading away.

"Ah!" Jinta exclaimed as she studied the communicator at her wrist. She bowed at her waist. "Excuse me please! I will be back!"

"If you buy some food, bring me some!" Leroy mildly stated. "But then again, maybe I should go with you so you don't get lost."

"It will only be a moment," Jinta blurted out. In a swift, unconscious gesture, she flexed her wrist forward and hid the screen of her communicator by one hand.

"Alright then," Leroy spoke up with a touch of skeptism before turning his head back toward the racetrack where race cars and drivers were still preparing.

Jinta hurried away. She bought a corn dog at the stands, took three bites, then quickly threw away the remnants and the paper it had been wrapped in. She hurried down another line of box seats instead. The screen of her communicator flashed again, and this time a box seating number glowed upon its surface. Jinta matched the number on her communicator with the box seat before her, then strolled in. It was not the one she had left Leroy in.

"Hello," Jinta said with such a regal severity she might have been mistaken for Lafiel instead of Jinta for a moment. "I am here, Grand Craftsman. I apologize I was not able to meet you at the mansion as planned. Someone unexpected came along before we could meet."

"That is fine, your Excellency," the man dressed in plainclothes reinforced with steel bowed. A thick mat of gray hair was on his head except for a significant bald spot, as well a sizable but trimmed beard of equal gray. "I thought something like that might have happened, so I arranged to find you here in secret."

"How did you know I'd be at the races?" Jinta spoke calmly, but her fingers fret a drumroll along her Mrs. Sparkles doll.

"Friends as well as enemies keep track of your movements, Excellency," the man said as the din of the crowd continued to surround them like the rushing waves of a turbulent stream. To be continued.


	8. Chapter 8

**_Since you really insist, here's a post! Previously: "I think I'm beginning to like you," Jinta smiled at her new friend as she did as he asked. Jinta settled down into her seat to watch the race. She hummed along with the musical score projected from her doll as she relaxed. Then the communicator hung on her wrist chimed. A single symbol blinked three times before fading away._**

 ** _"Ah!" Jinta exclaimed as she studied the communicator at her wrist. She bowed at her waist. "Excuse me please! I will be back!"_**

 ** _"If you buy some food, bring me some!" Leroy mildly stated. "But then again, maybe I should go with you so you don't get lost."_**

 ** _"It will only be a moment," Jinta blurted out. In a swift, unconscious gesture, she flexed her wrist forward and hid the screen of her communicator by one hand._**

 _ **"Alright then," Leroy spoke up with a touch of** **skepticism** **before turning his head back toward the racetrack where race cars and drivers were still preparing.**_

 ** _Jinta hurried away. She bought a corn dog at the stands, took three bites, then quickly threw away the remnants and the paper it had been wrapped in. She hurried down another line of box seats instead. The screen of her communicator flashed again, and this time a box seating number glowed upon its surface. Jinta matched the number on her communicator with the box seat before her, then strolled in. It was not the one she had left Leroy in._**

 ** _"Hello," Jinta said with such a regal severity she might have been mistaken for Lafiel instead of Jinta for a moment. "I am here, Grand Craftsman. I apologize I was not able to meet you at the mansion as planned. Someone unexpected came along before we could meet."_**

 ** _"That is fine, your Excellency," the man dressed in plainclothes reinforced with steel bowed. A thick mat of gray hair was on his head except for a significant bald spot, as well a sizable but trimmed beard of equal gray. "I thought something like that might have happened, so I arranged to find you here in secret."_**

 ** _"How did you know I'd be at the races?" Jinta spoke calmly, but her fingers fret a drumroll along her Mrs. Sparkles doll._**

 ** _"Friends as well as enemies keep track of your movements, Excellency," the man said as the din of the crowd continued to surround them like the rushing waves of a turbulent stream._**

Jinta's eyes were no longer wide like the ocean as they had been with Lafin and Leroy mere minutes ago. Instead, her delighted, amused stare had narrowed into the guarded, calculating look of someone who has been offended many times. She tipped her head slightly as she studied the sturdy green canvas suit of the man before her, and its adornments of three medals- all shaped into spheres of gold that elongated into the noses of domesticated bears, for somehow, they along with humans, had made their way to the planet called Martine, a mere few centuries ago.

"Your Excellency," the man spoke in such a dull whisper that Jinta was compelled to slid onto the stadium bench beside him. She listened to his breath touch her ear, but kept her sight fixed firmly on the racetrack below.

"Your father, Count Earl Jinto Hyde, has honored his promise to not come within a light-year of the planet Martine throughout his life and upheld the treaty which led to the voluntary surrender of Martine as a territory. But he has not been forgotten. Neither have you, as you are heir apparent to become the reigning noble of our humble industrial planet. It is you, whom in a few short years, will represent us craftsmen and miners of Martine to your Sovereign Empire."

"That is so, Grand Craftsman," uttered Jinta in a whisper. "But what can I do for you? What plaintiff would you have me lay before the Empress?"

"This time, it is no mere simple business," the man said with a brief, disgusted snuff. Then he let out a weary sight and scratched his knee, as if there might be an old injury there that pained him. Then he shifted his weight.

"It is no request for tools. It is not a respite from an interest debt that we of the craftsman guilds are seeking. If you are to become our Countess, then you must do one thing- stay alive despite all those who oppose Martine's treaty with the Abh Empire. Here," the man uttered while handing Jinta a slender chip. "All that we know of some... stirrings. It is not enough that you stay away from Martine. And if you intend to return to Martine, someday, you will have all the more need of such knowledge."

"I am no stranger to assassination attempts," Jinta spoke with surprising offhandedness. "When I was a child, there was one notable attempt, and when I attended my first military and civility classes as required by law, there were several more attempts. And so I was pulled aside for special training in order to keep myself alive."

"Then you should understand that these are especially difficult times of unrest on Martine. If you have read all the recent papers, you will know." The man with deeply grooved age lines beside his large nose gave her stared at her cheek, as it was the only portion of her face pointed toward him.

"Yes. Officials of the Empire have gathered reports also," Jinta said, looking especially pained as her twin braids of brown hair swayed by either side of her Abh ears. "An underground resistance movement against the Empire has been gathering there. The Federationists have been proselytizing many. And so resentment of the Empire grows. So it is an unlikely time that even those in full support of the Empire will endorse a visit to Martine from myself. If that is what you fear, then you have my word that I have no immediate plans to go to Martine despite my curiosity for my father's old planet.

"No, my lady," the gray-haired man said, massaging one of his gnarled hands with agitation before resting it back against his knee. "I asked to meet with you to give you that data. A revolution may be brewing that will send the whole planet into unrest."

"Ah! And then the Empire will blockade Martine from its sord and forbid any or mined or material made on Martine from being transferred to other planets in order to starve the insurgents to submission."

"That is what we fear, Countess," the craftsman spoke gravely, rubbing his hand again. "Some make this a question of loyalty to Martine, but for others, it is about loyalty to one's lively hood. For old craftsmen and miners like myself, we know nothing of this life but our trades. To have that taken away from us is worse than war itself."

"I understand," Jinta nodded. "And I will study the data you have given me, sir, and do all that I can to prevent an uprising. If one occurs, I will entreat for the factories of Martine to not be shut down."

"It is good for me to hear such words from you," the man uttered. "And such an action would be wise. Some of the younger persons even among craftsmen are sympathetic to a revolution."

"But why haven't you chosen to speak to my father, the Count Earl Jinto Hyde, instead of me?" Jinta inquired. "He is the current reigning noble and his much more accustomed to such diplomatic challenges."

"He is, as I am, growing old, child of the Abh," the old Grand Craftsman stared as he stared towards Jinta with bleary old eyes. "He will not be able to participate in the problems of our planet much longer, and besides, there is a chance that there will be a fresh start for Martine with you. Perhaps time and your old actions will ensure that you are not hated as he was."

"Or I will be hated more by the Federationists, as the one who opposes them," Jinta spoke, biting back a bitter grin. "But that is the duty for which I was born. To rule Martine and oversee its binds to the Abh Empire, by whatever means necessary."

"A serious task, my lady," her visitor said as he leveraged himself to his feet. "I hope you will succeed in keeping Martine a safe and prosperous planet, perhaps in years long after I am gone. But most of all, please honor the good tradesmen who have always done their utmost best to supply all of humanity and Abh-kind with the resources they need."

"It will not be forgotten," Jinta pledged in all severity.

Jinta's visitor stomped his way out of the seating booth. The crowd, which had muttered and chattered before now roared with a gutteral shout as they cheered or booed the spectacle they had all paid to see. Jinta cast a backwards glance at the racetrack from the booth. Racecars, one of whom she knew would belong to Lafin, spun around the track in a second lap. But feeling uneasy, Jinta trotted three swift steps forward, nearly overbalancing and brushing against the backside of her slow, much-aged ally. As she craned her head around his stooped shoulder, a gleam flashed out and a glimmer like steel caught in the mirror of her eye. More rapid than any might have guessed possible, Jinta hooked her left leg around those of the retreating man before her and pulled him backwards as she threw her own shoulders as far in reverse as possible. Jinta's reward for this was a painful thud against the poured stone of the stadium. But a bruised shoulder was a small price to pay as the sound of four dulled bullets struck a wall. Teeth gritted, Jinta rolled over the scraped skin of her shoulder to free herself of the craftsman spouting terror and confusion. As rapidly as she was able to, she stood. Hands on her hips, she tugged two pistols of Abh-manufacture from what had seemed two rear pockets to her skirt. A devasting blue energy formed in the barrels of both the derringers. Jinta slanted one of the lasers toward the entrance to the viewing booth and crouched against a wall. This was yet another assassination attempt, although it was impossible for Jinta to tell if its target was her or the Head of the Craftsguild. Still, the old man's warning words had stirred her. Was it really the Federationists? **To be continued...**


End file.
